Oddly Colored Sky
by Happy Monkey Gamma
Summary: Harry dreams of the end. Snape finds him when he wakes up. One-shot, Snarry, set vaguely during the beginning of OotP, year 5. Very odd and maybe a little magical realism?


I was dreaming when I wrote this, so sue me if I go astray.

This started out as a companion to _Dream in Silver _and _An Unwanted Intrusion_, both of which you can find on my profile, but it changed too much, and is very much its own little one-shot now. The only thing those two stories share with this one are dreams and some weird (U)ST.

Snarry. Pre-slash? Set during Harry's 5th year. And it totally got away from me at one point, too.

Please comment and critique! C&C is love!! And I, uh, again apologize for the rough, un-beta'd, completely odd nature of this.

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_**Oddly Colored Sky**_

Snape stood before him, his face expressionless and white. In his left hand, he held a serpent, which hissed and displayed its fangs at Harry. The serpent's lower body undulated as it slowly wrapped itself around Snape's left forearm. Snape's right hand was raised, empty and with its open palm facing Harry.

Snape was speaking.

Harry listened intensely, watching Snape's thin lips as they formed words, ideas, universes of sound and meaning. Snape's words were like air, dissipating even as they were formed, the meaning spreading out and away, instantly unrecognizable and indistinguishable.

Harry reached out with his left hand. He clasped Snape's right hand tightly. Snape was still speaking.

Harry was still listening.

Snape's teeth sank into Harry' throat, drawing blood.

Harry's teeth sank into the serpent's body, drawing blood.

The serpent's teeth sank into Snape's neck, drawing blood.

They stood still for a long moment, forming a strange daisy chain of teeth and blood and pain. Harry made a sound as Snape's hand clenched his and his mouth filled with blood.

Harry released the serpent from his bite. The serpent's blood was sour on his tongue and he licked his teeth, unsure. The serpent withdrew its fangs from Snape's neck. A spray of Snape's blood coated its scaled head. Snape pulled away last, his movement slow and labored as he mouthed Harry's throat weakly.

His cheek caressed Harry's cheek as he withdrew; his nose brushed against Harry's nose.

The serpent unwrapped itself from Snape's arm and slipped out of Snape's grip. It fell into darkness with an enraged hiss.

Snape's hand slipped out of Harry's grip like water. He said nothing and stared into Harry's eyes as he fell into darkness.

Harry stood alone, with serpent's blood in his mouth and a ghostly impression of Snape's hand pressed into his.

He looked up at the oddly colored sky, feeling incredibly hollow.

"Snape."

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Snape listened to the exhales whistling through Potter's nose and stared at the drool glistening on Potter's chin, growing steadily more annoyed by the sight. As he weighed the pros and cons of just shoving the boy out of the chair and sending him out of his sight, he questioned the collective wisdom of number twelve, Grimmauld Place's current occupants.

Why had the Weasleys or that mangy fugitive even let Potter sleep in the library? The books were known to be openly hostile, and there was no way to know what sort of Dark artifacts or treacherous pests that lurked in the stacks. Surely the boy had a bed somewhere in this broken-down house. He should be there, whistling through his nose and drooling on his chin to his heart's content, instead of driving Snape and the menacingly rustling books to murderous distraction.

He certainly looked uncomfortable, curled in on himself as he slept in the library's least threadbare chair. His shoulder was jutting out in a way that made Snape wince, and Potter's head was in a position that was sure to give him a sore neck in the morning.

Potter was mumbling in between the whistles, uttering nonsense noises and miscellaneous syllables that made sense only to Potter's subconscious, and even that was negotiable.

Snape reached out, unwilling to stare at or listen to Potter any longer. Before he could shake the fool awake, however, Potter managed to say something that could almost be considered understandable.

"Snape," he said. Somewhere, in whatever dream his mind had created from unaddressed wishes and fears and subconscious affairs, Potter said his name.

Snape paused, his hand outstretched and hovering just beyond Potter's shoulder, unsure as to what to make of this. He drew his hand back as Potter began to stir on his own. The boy groaned and tilted his head back. He bent back, stretching his spine and rolling his jutting shoulder as he did so. He exhaled as he sat up slightly, with his head and much of his right side against the high back of the chair and one foot on the floor.

It was quiet; the very books have stopped rustling.

Potter looked at him with half-closed eyes. "Snape?" he said again, his voice no louder than a whisper. "I thought you fell."

Snape felt a shudder run though him, as if Potter had just walked over his grave. "I am quite uninterested in whatever inane dream-," he began to say, only to be cut off by Potter's left hand grabbing his right hand in a vice.

"I can still taste it," Potter said, a foreboding gleam in his green eyes as he stared up at Snape. "I can still feel your teeth on my neck." As he spoke, a spot of blood began to form and grow on Potter's shirt, right at the neckline, turning the light gray cotton a dark, sticky red.

Snape instinctively tried to pull away; Potter's grip on his hand only tightened.

"You can't fall," Potter said, his eyes unmistakeably fever-bright now. "I don't want that to happen." He pulled Snape in with a strength he did not know the boy possessed and kissed Snape hard on the mouth.

Snape tasted something on the boy's tongue as it invaded his mouth. It was blood, but it wasn't human blood. It was darker, sour, and it frightened Snape. This aggressive boy that was digging his nails into Snape's hand and into the back of Snape's head couldn't be Potter. His body was responding, he was kissing him back, but this was not real. Potter was moaning, and it took all of Snape's resolve and fear to pull away.

Snape took several steps back, shaking his head as if to shake off a particularly vicious dream. Potter was as he was when Snape first entered the library, with his jutting shoulder and his whistling nose and his nonsensical mumbling. The books were rustling again, their pages stirring the air like the wings of a million locusts about to descend devour.

Snape stared at Potter, letting his fear and arousal transform itself into justifiable hatred, when the boy began to stir just as he had before. He tilted his head back and rolled his jutting shoulder.

He stomped out of the library, not stopping when he heard Potter whisper, "Snape?" as he caught sight of his retreating form storming off in anger.

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What do you think? Please review! I'd really like to know :)


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